Karachi mourns bomb attack victims

KARACHI – Thousands of people have gathered in Pakistan’s largest city, with a population of 18 million, for a mass funeral after 31 people were killed and more than 170 were wounded in bomb attacks on Friday.

Karachi was tense on Saturday as people raised further questions about the effectiveness of security crackdowns on al Qaeda-linked militants.

Major Aurang Zeb, a paramilitary spokesman in Karachi, said on Saturday that security forces were on maximum alert ahead of the funeral in the Malir area of the southern port city.

Shops remain closed and public transport reduced as several thousand mourners gathered at funerals of some of the victims of the attacks.

As opposed to initial investigations, where the police suspect a bomb-laden motorcycle was driven into one of the buses, now police say that the bomb was planted in the first and second bus and they were detonated remotely.

Senior police investigator Raja Umer Khattab said the Jundullah militant group was behind the attacks. “This is the same group that carried out the Ashura attack,” he said referring the late December attack that killed 43 people.

Khattab said some arrests had been made after the December attack but police were hunting for more members.

Meanwhile, Zeenews reported that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Friday condemned the twin blasts in Karachi.

New Taliban leader?

According to an unconfirmed report by The New York Times a successor to Hakimullah Masud, who is rumored to have died during a U.S. drone attack in December, may already have been chosen.

The man under question is Maulvi Noor Jamal, a native of the tribal area of Orakzai, where the residents claim he has taken control.

Noor Jamal rose to power as regional Taliban leader in the Kurram tribal area and was given additional responsibilities when the Pakistani military offensive began in South Waziristan in October.

Photo: Pakistani Shiite Muslims mourn during a funeral prayer of Friday's bombing victims in Karachi, Pakistan on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010. Beating their chests with hands, thousands of minority Shiite Muslims attended the mass funeral for those killed in a pair of bombings in Pakistan's largest city. (AP Photo)